User talk:Paltogue
No, that's cool to change those back. Was probably getting a tad zealous about the editing.Gallicus 14:05, 13 June 2008 (UTC) Have a query for you re: references. I can understand having them "small" for in text notes: ... the player is given a poisoned dagger. For the foot of page references I prefer normal sized text as opposed to squinting. I'm asking as you remarked a preference for "small" footnotes, yet for some pages (eg.: Prophets of Doom) you haven't used "small" notes. I just wanted to get your feedback so that I can be consistent with my editing.Gallicus 00:28, 21 June 2008 (UTC) Small font footnotes Hi Gallicus, I started off using standard size font for footnotes and then changed to small, hence the mixture of normal and small. Personally I think small footnotes look good as they don't detract from the main text quite as much and look like they are footnotes, which are almost always in smaller font in regular publications. I think I'm the only person doing them this way though, and I'm not overly bothered about it, even though I do think it looks better. Maybe we should see what the others think? Pal. Inns and Taverns I have added some code to the template and it is now working (have a look at Template:Inns and Taverns). Nedueb 19:40, 4 July 2008 (UTC) Standardizing Titannica I'm trying to standardise the wiki with a consistent style of referencing etc. My problem has been a variety of different formats used by different people on a series of different pages. I've put together what I think works best (mixing & matching for the previous styles) which is as follows: *All references will be footnotes, as opposed to links "in text". (Some pages had one system, some the other, and some both!) *I've also found that the templates created (by Nedueb?) are far more user friendly in terms of mass editing later on etc. instead of simply using FF35. *A result of this second point is that the use of colon after such a template seems to throw the wiki into a fit (as you noted on a couple of pages I'd had a poke at), one I've found can be avoided via the use of a comma instead of a colon. For example: , 56 Your thoughts?Gallicus 20:17, 14 November 2008 (UTC) Refs Yes, I noticed that problem. How important is it to have rather than FF32? It's just that the slightly raised book number looks a bit odd, and the colon is pretty standard for linking a source and a page number, rather than a comma. Some of my older pages haven't got the referencing system I'm using now, but they will get updated eventually! Ta for you concern, Paltogue 21:10, 14 November 2008 (UTC). Whatnot By using the template the references can be edited like a CSS. Any change made to the template would affect all the references. Hence I'm editing them to remove the raised text look. The colon problem I can't currently see a way around yet. Take a look at War of the Four Kingdoms refs section to see what I'm trying.Gallicus 21:19, 14 November 2008 (UTC) Non-canon stuff I agree with your observations on non-canon. As you know, I imported the detail of many articles from my Fang's Finest Emporium site (from the Encyclopaedia of Khul etc). This, in part, was a creative outlet, hence the non-canon extrapolation to fill gaps etc. I think here, in Titannica, they should be edited out. I thought to add "/Theories" extensions to such pages as a home for certain extrapolation in order to provide thoughts on answers to unexplained questions, which would also serve to be totally explicit in their nature as non-canon "fan-based" theories. This has proven a useful tool in other wiki sites because some users do browse for such information. I would imagine someone noticing Amarkisk in the pages of 10AYB would come here hoping for some explanation and if cogent theories were available to them, they would find it a useful resource, so long as we ensure canon and theories are separate. This would apply to the Dragons article as well, for example. I was thinking of adding a tag to place all such articles in need of such revision in a category that we can browse in order to fix, such as the stub category. I think this would be a preferred method to simply deleting information.Nedueb 21:22, 16 November 2008 (UTC) The Ease of Templates I've noted that you are still typing out Titan - The Fighting Fantasy World - XXX for each reference. You can just use - XXX and get the same result (including italics!). Hence why I've been switching them all over to the templates. See the page Category:Titannica Referencing Templates for the full list.Gallicus 09:14, 19 November 2008 (UTC) Ah, excellent, thanks! What about things like Allansia and Dungeoneer? Paltogue 09:19, 19 November 2008 (UTC) They're all on the list! Have a look. :)Gallicus 09:31, 19 November 2008 (UTC) Welcome Pages This is presumably some sort of auto-reply done by Wikia. I'm confused as to why they'd tag you onto each one though. Perhaps asks Nedueb?Gallicus 20:38, 23 March 2009 (UTC) : Got your reply. Assume it's an auto response. Please make this clear to newcomers (who unlike me may not have any Wikipedia experience at all) 19:31, October 15, 2009 (UTC) ::This auto-reply was set up by the broader Wikia team and has nothing to with us here at Titannica. Not sure if we even have the ability to modify the welcome message.Gallicus 20:07, October 15, 2009 (UTC) A File If I was to email you a file (about 16MB worth) would you be willing to take a look at it and offer feedback? It is a compilation of four of the "Warlock" mini adventures into book form that I bashed together in the last couple of days.Gallicus 07:38, 8 May 2009 (UTC) I'll need a contact email address. Mine is xxxxxx at xxx dot xxx dot xxx.Gallicus 09:07, 8 May 2009 (UTC) "Considered for publication" Hi Paltogue, Thanks for the welcome last week - I signed up for Titan Rebuilding but I'm yet to receive conformation. I have a question for you. In 1988, my short, little 100-paragraph adventure The Dark Castle was considered for publication by Puffin. Unfortunately, I no longer have any copies of the feedback they sent me, so no prima facie evidence. But would it count? I did use the FF rules (Skill/'STAMINA'/'Luck'), although I didn't approach Jackson and Livingstone directly. For that reason (I think), it was looked at by someone from the "Children's books" department if my memory serves me (I was only 12 years old at the time!). Anyway, I was reading the Unpublished Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks page and thought it could go in at "1988", but wasn't sure if it was appropriate. best, Sunil060902 16:15, 12 August 2009 (UTC) :Oh well, can't blame a guy for trying! I understand your point about all the other "applicants". Well, I did write it so many years ago that my writing could be massively improved in some references. But there is the aforementioned 100-paragraph version, which was called The Dark Castle, and then the expanded version with 1000 paragraphs which I renamed Lord of Sword Castle (which I last seriously worked on in c. 1993). I do have hard copies of both, but an electronic copy of Lord is on another computer presently out of commission, though I still have the hard drive mounted somewhere - I will try to dig it out soon! Unfortunately, interim versions of 420, 525 and 640 paragraphs have been lost to the vagaries of bedroom tidy-ups over the last 20 years... best, Sunil060902 22:42, 12 August 2009 (UTC) Recent Edits Hi Warren. Still thinking about you "Lands of the Inland Sea" query. I'd be inclined to removed the capitals 'L's, kill the separate page and simply note on the relevant pages where information comes from. Meanwhile, Cranec, Sunil, and Gladrius are making edits, some of which are "explicitly" giving away solutions to puzzle within the gamebooks (see the recent edits on Kharé - Cityport of Traps (book) for instance). Previously, you, Ken and Andy have always couched such edits with ambiguity. Do we need to ask the recent arrivals to follow that line of thinking, or leave them to simply add whatever (I've been tagged such pages with "spoiler" warnings)?Gallicus 10:05, 28 August 2009 (UTC) :Heh, actually the edits in question are pretty much all mine. I gues I should give an argument for it: I think people should be able to find the information they want in a wiki, and probably at least some will want puzzle solutions. There's also the argument for comprehensiveness. :On the other hand, there is the argument that if articles are like that, then if you read the wiki there's almost no point reading the books, but as long as pages or sections are clearly marked spoilers I think the decision can be left to the users what information they want to take from an article. Cranec 10:50, 28 August 2009 (UTC) :Funny enough, I was about to post about this, either here or on Titan Rebuilding! I'm very impressed indeed with the new contributors, and it's great to have them aboard - lots of great stuff and some real hard work and energy being put into the task. That said, I share Gallicus' worries about detailing solutions and encounters. Although I see the point in this (and it has been well done, and if it's going to be done, that's the way to do it), I don't think we should go that far with the Wiki. The Wiki can't include everything (why not have an article about each junction in Firetop Mountain, for example)? Also, we have compiled this Wiki under the terms of research and fair use, and so far we haven't drawn any flak from the powers that be - it might well be pushing it too far if we reveal every detail which makes playing the gamebooks a great experience. So, I recommend that we continue to couch all edits with ambiguity (which is definitely not the same as inaccuracy) rather than giving exact summaries of each and every crucial encounter (and we can use the You pages to give outlines of each adventure). I think it might be worth putting together some kind of policy statement on this. Cranec - don't take this as criticism - your articles have been top notch; it's just a matter of boundaries. Thoughts? Paltogue 19:20, 28 August 2009 (UTC) ::Seriously, I'm not going to take umbrage. If you want I can do a slash-and-burn on the spoiler aspects of the articles I wrote, or somebody else can, I mean I'm not maternally protective of the articles or anything. However, as you might expect, I think this issue could benefit from more thought, and I want to make a few points, although I will abide by the decision taken. :::1. I only intended to include option summaries for already salient topics. My criteria for salience is that a person, place or thing would have to be mentioned with specificity in several references in one or more gamebooks, or would have to be one of the primary aims/goals/interactions in a gamebook. Therefore, I consider, say, Valignya and the Captain of the Mampang Guard, the Nobles of Khare etc. all to be notable for that reason, and therefore I don't accept the equivalence drawn between them and a junction in Firetop Mountain. :::2. There are puzzles that don't fit the above criteria, the Spell-lock is one. It is neither a primary goal, nor is it mentioned several times in the text. It is purely a puzzle per se, a one-off and not a recurringly mentioned person or feature. Aside from salient encounters, pure puzzles were the second category of solutions I was going to include, the Spell-lock is a good example. I was going to do it for this reason - :::3. As the FF wikia, I think Titannica should be the internet's last word on most things FF related. If somebody is wondering about the proper order of the spell lines for the North Gate of Khare, somebody else should be able to just point them to Titannica. They choose to avail of the information or not, although I admit that we do create a temptation that wouldn't otherwise be there. :::4. Details of a lot of the people, places and items in question are sparsely given - a lot of the information in their articles is assembled from mere ober dicta in canon text. Omitting the relevant points of their gamebook appearance I feel would gut a lot of articles, and decrease the articles' utility for the user, amounting to a decrease in quality. :::5. I hadn't known bringing the powers of the publishers or authors down upon Titannica was a concern, but even if they aren't particularly litigious I can understand why you would want to err on the side of caution anyway. So, fair point in that, however, if copyright is the issue, I would be quite surprised if a case could be made against somebody for providing a summary of the contents of copyrighted material, rather than providing the material itself. ::So, I'm not convinced that, on balance, the ambiguity policy is the correct one to adopt in topics of salience or on puzzles per se. ::However, I think the idea of a policy statement for new users is a good call, in fact a virtual necessity, so I definitely support that. ::Anyway, no hard feelings on my part. I was going to give editing a bit of a break anyway so I'll avoid some topics for a while, maybe go through OOTP making edits on creatures or something, until some definite policy is made. ::In any case, I gotta have an early night, so I'm off to bed.Cranec 22:46, 28 August 2009 (UTC) :Yeah, we need a lot of pages detailing what we can comfortably do with the wiki and what we can't. I've been working on the Titannica Wiki Formatting page to make that as usable as possible, but fear that we've not done much to make these obvious places to look at when starting for new users.Gallicus 19:30, 28 August 2009 (UTC) ::What about an obvious "New users look here first!" kind of link on the first page? Paltogue 19:45, 28 August 2009 (UTC) :::Sounds good.Gallicus 19:58, 28 August 2009 (UTC) :Another thing I wanted to comment on was image quality and maps in the Wiki. Andy once produced a guide to producing good images for the Wiki which I can upload here if necessary - some of the images posted originally and some posted more recently haven't been edited properly to make them as clear as possible. Also, I don't know how I feel about uploading the FF maps to the Wiki - I think we might well want them here, but it could draw flak, so we might just want the odd crucial example. Thoughts? Paltogue 19:20, 28 August 2009 (UTC) :I've made a start on editing all the files recently and will be flagging up ones that look awful (see the pic of Garius of Halak for example) while tidying up and standardising the descriptions and copyright templates.Gallicus 19:30, 28 August 2009 (UTC) ::Cool. Here's Andy's instructions: Scanning the image in * Scan it in at around 150 to 300 dpi, and in colour, to preserve as much info as possible. the image has been scanned, using the graphics program of your choice * Rotate the image to the correct orientation (saves neck strain!) * Convert the image from colour to grayscale. * Alter the brightness and contrast of the image. Normally, for black and white pictures (such as Fabled Lands), I altered brightness and contrast to both be +15. However, FF pix seem to be mainly on cheaper quality paper, so I use around +5 brightness, and +40 contrast, depending on the amount of black in the image. This seems to give a nice clear result. * Reduce the size of the image to 500 pixels wide. If smaller, leave it alone! * Erase any unsightly dots, blots or smudges. * Save as a jpeg. Contact Just got your note on my user page. I have checked the server and the mail account and both are operational. Very strange. Do you want to try again? 10:30, September 11, 2009 (UTC) Copyright Okay - I'll be more imaginative in any description I put although I was thinking of just putting in the stats tables for all the entries not entered so far. '(Fibire 14:01, February 2, 2010 (UTC)) ' Re: Copyright Well, as far as I am aware, I did not infringe on any copyrights by Steve Jackson and company. Most of the information in the entires you mentioned was already there when I worked at them; I just added what I recalled from Out of the Pit and other sources, and added a few considerations of my own. But to (perhaps) my defense, it is rather difficult to insert a source if you don't know the exact short codes for them. I know that the Fighting Fantasy solo-adventure books are listed like FF1 and so on, but other sources - like The Riddling Reaver and the Advanced gamebook rules - are a little bit tougher to determine. So in order for me to make this more efficient, I'd like to know some of these additional codes from non-gamebook sources.Daniel46 07:32, June 23, 2010 (UTC) Templates Fairly easy Warren! Open a new page titled "Template:XXX" (XXX being the name of the template). In another tab find a page with the Spoiler template and click edit. At the bottom of the edit screen is a list of templates in the page. Click the edit link next to the spoiler one to get the spoiler template edit page. Copy & paste this formatting into your new template page. In a new tab upload the picture you want to go with your template (perhaps the face of the lady from the cover of ATM?). In your new template edit the image link to link to your newly uploaded image and edit the text to say what you want. Click save. Give it a go and I'll tidy up and errors.Gallicus 19:10, September 14, 2011 (UTC) You Hi, I was looking at the following page. http://fightingfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Hero_of_Howl_of_the_Werewolf I just wondered does it belong on the wikia? What the hero does or does not do is entirely down to interpretation (ie how you play the book) and arguably the adventure has not even 'happened' yet.Craze b0i 15:06, September 15, 2011 (UTC) *I agree, it's only one possible course of events. The article should outline the likely course or courses of events for the adventurer, not one specific path. It should also be referenced throughout. Change at will! Paltogue 17:25, September 15, 2011 (UTC) :*Well I was thinking slightly more radical, which was to remove all of it. But I shall edit it in the way you suggested. :*I made a start so see what you think... ::*I think radical is fine. I'd strip it down to a bit of background about your character and some of the key facts about your mission. Paltogue 16:43, September 17, 2011 (UTC) :::*Ok will do! Suggested Deletions Hi Warren, when putting the tag in, just stick it in as the first line of a page without deleting the rest of the page's contents. That makes it easier for people to see what is being suggested for deletion instead of having to go into the page history.Gallicus 20:34, September 24, 2011 (UTC) :*No worries, although with pages that are totally non-canon I think it's good to make people have to look for the non-canon content (by looking at the history) rather than having it there for all to see in the main page of an article until we get round to deciding if we should delete it. Paltogue 21:08, September 24, 2011 (UTC) Read More You can request disabling the feature via Special:Contact.Gallicus (talk) 08:52, January 3, 2013 (UTC) Wikia issues Perhaps we should consider porting the wiki to a new location to avoid having to deal with the annoying Wikia "Oasis" skin?Gallicus (talk) 01:39, September 9, 2013 (UTC) Perhaps you can explain where I'm going wrong. There's never been a problem with my additions before and you don't help by leaving no indication of what I'm doing wrong. KeredDrahcir (talk) 19:49, April 16, 2015 (UTC) Crystal Lake and Lake Cauldron are the same according to this page: http://fightingfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Stormslayer_%28book%29 KeredDrahcir (talk) 11:37, August 30, 2015 (UTC)